The Middle Ages

The Middle Ages

The definition of history itself is: the study of past events, particularly in human affairs. This definition is able to effectively and precisely describe what our history class, lead my Mr. Ritter, was able to flawlessly complete on May 2nd 2011. Together with Mr. Ritter, we went deep back into the past... to discover the world around us, the birth of Western Culture and history itself. The class took an in depth look at a variety and vast amount of different subjects and topics.

The following pieces of information, facts and details about the Middle Ages, were retained by my group:

The Middle Ages, is the period in history or in European history, to be more exact, between the fall of the Roman Empire to the fall of Constantinople

The Middle Ages, are said to have taken place from around 500 to 1492

The Middle Ages, are split into two sections: The early Middle Ages or the Dark Ages (500-1100) and the high or late Middle Ages (1100 onwards)

We discussed the three estates, that were the foundation and the man power of the Middle Ages. The three estates, the location of their primary residence and their symbols are enlisted below:

1st Estate - The Church [Churches and Monasteries] (A cross)

2nd Estate - The Nobility [The Castle(s)] (A sword)

3rd Estate - The "rest" [Lived in cities and around the castle] (A city wall)

The church in Salem, came up as being an interesting topic, as the interior design does not match the age and style of the exterior

The release of the printing press in around (1450). We discussed the Gutenberg press and the Gutenberg Bible.

Mr. Ritter explained to the class, that the bible or the 42-line bible, is so expensive as it was the first major book to be printed with a moveable type printing press.

The class was very interested in the price of the bible and the location(s) of its complete and incomplete originals. We found out that a complete original, costs between 25 and 35 million Euros.

Mr. Ritter was reminded by the topic (Gutenberg), of his old university and the time when he was a professor. He then began talking to the class about the University of Texas Austin and AandM Texas. He talked about the prestige of the University itself, student population, endowment and finally the most important topic of all, how good their football teams really are and were?

The class was then, allowed to research the universities and look up some interesting facts on them.

We then moved on to a more religious topic, Martin Luther. We talked about his origins, the publishing of the bible in German and how he was perceived by the church?

We were told by Mr. Ritter that the bible was originally written in Greek, it was then translated into Latin and then finally translated into German, by Martin Luther himself.

Elisabeth von Rosenstiel, talked about how modern German or Hoch Deutsch is based on the writings of many ancient or medieval German writers, including Marin Luther.

In discussing the topic over with fellow classmates, we discovered that the church must have been furious that the 3rd estate, was able to read the bible after it was published in German. The church was also very angry with Martin's idea of the Reformation of the Church, this being as the church knew much to well that its income would diminish greatly.

Reasons were brought